[Note: This essay was written in the summer of 2010 at the request of Dr. Patrick Michaels, intended for a book he was editing. His publisher declined to include it in the book because of its religious content. It was never published elsewhere until now. We hope it remains a helpful survey of the history of the debate over global warming among evangelicals up to that time.—ECB, March 11, 2016] Introduction In the last half decade there has been a blossoming of public concern about global … [Read more...]
Ocean Acidification—Well, Maybe Not So Much
As global temperature remains well below alarmists' predictions, environmentalists continue to promote devastation from "ocean acidification" as their next rationale for clamping down on CO2 emissions. But as a new article in the ICES Journal of Marine Science makes clear, the actual scientific evidence for such devastation is slim, and the primary reason why so much gets published about it seems to be not scientific but political/sociological. As Ben Webster summarized in The Times (London): … [Read more...]
Christianity, Veganism, and Animal Suffering
Last month, I discussed how Christianity cannot impose veganism on its adherents because doing so would violate the freedom we have in Christ as well as our lordship over creation. In other words, humans are superior to animals and thus eating animals is within the bounds of the created order. But I also noted that animal rights is not the only reason employed by anti-meat eaters to support their cause. One of the more emotionally compelling arguments is what can be called the argument from … [Read more...]
Does the Bible Require Common Ownership of Land?
Does the Bible validate private property in land, or does it require that land be communally owned? With Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, a self-professed socialist, doing surprisingly well in the Democratic Presidential primary campaign, such thoughts become increasingly common. Someone recently wrote: It seems to me that a theology that takes Creation as evidence of a Creator ... would recoil at privatizing Creation as a private income-generating asset. The way I come at environmental … [Read more...]
Thorns and Briers, or Peaceful Habitation?
A common theme of environmentalist thought—the Green vision of the ideal world—is of a small human population whose effect on earth’s ecosystems doesn’t differ significantly from that of other species. The stark contrast between that vision, with its particular understanding of what it means to be human, and the Biblical vision is apparent from the beginning of the Bible, where, having made Adam and Eve (unlike all other living things, earthly or heavenly) in His image, “God blessed them. And … [Read more...]
The Haunt of Jackals
Various passages of the Bible set forth the complete elimination of human habitation in a land as the epitome of God’s judgment. I have long found it remarkable that much of the environmental movement sees as ideal what Scripture depicts as hideous. One place that does so is Isaiah 34, in which God through the Prophet Isaiah foretells, in sometimes apocalyptic poetic language, His judgment on Edom and the other pagan nations that oppressed Israel and Judah: 1“Draw near, O nations, to hear, and … [Read more...]
Whither Global Food Shortage Predictions?
Less than two years ago, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which wants us to trust its prognostications about conditions a century from now enough to bet trillions on them, warned that global warming threatened global food supplies. But last week The New Indian Express reported, “International food prices dipped by 19 percent in the last year, the fourth consecutive annual fall .” Stop and think about that for a moment. In 2014 the IPCC’s Working Group II warned that … [Read more...]
Why Christians Don’t Impose Veganism
Veganism is the lifestyle philosophy of people that avoid eating, wearing, or using animal products or their by-products. They don’t eat meat or the products that derive from animals, even when the animal is not killed, such as milk. Now the rationales for adopting this lifestyle vary. Some do it for alleged health benefits, others for supposed environmental reasons, and other still on the basis of some ethical theory about not wanting animals to suffer (cf. Peter Singer’s Animal Liberation). Of … [Read more...]
Inside Big Green’s Sausage Factory
When my wife was a student at Hillsdale College __ years ago (Nope! Not telling!), some student friends worked in a sausage factory nearby. They literally waded in hip boots in vast vats of various parts of cattle and pig carcasses headed for massive grinders. “I’ll never eat sausage again!” was their common reaction. That’s not to say (properly cooked) sausage isn’t really safe, but it gives some idea how the saying arose that you never want to watch legislation being crafted because it’s a … [Read more...]
Why It’s Misleading to Speak of “Ocean Acidification”
Calling a decline in pH of ocean water from 8.2 to 8.1 (which is calculated to have happened over recent decades, perhaps in response to rising atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration though other causes are possible) “acidification,” meaning “becoming more acidic,” is misleading at best. Something can’t become “more acidic” unless it’s already acidic, and a solution with a pH higher than 7.0 is by definition not acidic but basic. Earth's five oceans vary in pH from about ~7.9 to ~8.3, and pH … [Read more...]
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